Moments Like These
by The DayDreaming
Summary: He waits for N at the crucial moment between living life as a king, and living life as a puppet. / NxTouya, a collection of drabbles and vignettes.
1. Spaces

There are words for moments like these, so precious and loving.

But Touya does not know them, so he holds his tongue and lets his teeth clack together; it hurts, more than words can appease.

Who does it hurt more?

And that, he can never know.

He waits for N. For N to do anything. To say he's sorry. To stop Ghetsis. To hold him.

To love him.

There are words, and there are moments, and then there are the spaces between which matter more than anything.

But N doesn't come. The moments pass, and Touya lives within the spaces.


	2. Figures In the Dark

N knows that all the mathematical formulas and equations in the world, all the sense and reason, logic and knowledge cannot calm a frantic mind.

He is not like others; has never been, but Touya says it's okay. It's okay, because as long as one person sees him beyond the creature clothed in human skin, panting and clawing at the world to find meaning, then there is a point to all this.

To everything.

It's worth the sleepless nights and the ponderings and the what-if's that trail behind him, cloaking him and choking him like a shroud.

He whispers to himself before he sleeps in the grass of an overgrown field, eyes high and searching starry skies, "I am alive."

He is alive. He is the way he is, exists the way he does, because he chooses to do so. No matter what anyone says, dehumanizes him as, he will always, _always_ be alive, as long as he chooses to do so.

But Touya. Touya falls away to another place in the realm of human comprehension. He is everything and nothing, a shadow that smiles at him and is all at once dangerous to others, kind to others.

Sometimes he wonders if Touya is real; to have someone so perfect by his side seems like a dream.

But every day he is reminded of Touya's faults, like getting lost; or burning water (as impossible as it seems); or waking up moody and sulking the morning away, until eventually Samurott snorts and lifts him by his hood and carries him to a private place, telling secrets and stories into his boy's tousled hair until he smiles.

Touya is real and human, even as his figure in the dark is still.

He makes no whispers or sighs, and does not wake when N screams from his nightmares, and in a way, that is all that N wants. It is important that Touya doesn't see the monster sniffling in the dark, clenching battered sleeping bag to chest and pleading _why why why_.

But when Touya does stir, the movements filtering into N's feverishly dreaming mind, there is a sense of wrong in his heart (_this shouldn't be why him why please forgive me_), and his eyes snap open and he is up and holding and shushing before he even quite registers that this is real.

Touya is real.

He shakes and shudders and thrashes in his arms, screaming and pleading, and when at last N grasps his shoulders, then slowly slides to cup his cheeks, hot and tear-stained, he gulps for air. His hands flutter around his neck, remembering a vice-like grip, steel fingers pressing and pressing and _pressing_—

"Am I alive?" he gasps. "Am I still here?"

There are words for moments like these. _I'm sorry. It's okay. He isn't here. Please keep breathing. It's only a nightmare, it isn't real but you are—_

_Please forgive me._

But N does not say them; Touya gasps and pleads and does not see him.


	3. The Improbable

"I don't understand it," Touya says.

Neither does N.

"I mean, I just wanted to make tea. You like tea, right?"

N does.

"I didn't know metal was flammable," Touya admits, prodding the charred pot.

Neither did N.

"But I have another pot."

"Touya, the forest is still on fire. Maybe it would be okay if you were to maybe use…use cold water, to make…tea. Better yet, let's just drink water. Water is incredibly healthy."

N pets Touya's hair and silently watches Samurott and Carracosta put out the fire.

"Are you angry? …Do you want me to make some rice?"


	4. The Howling

It is shock and it is awe and it is terror. They flash in his mind like rapid-fire lights, going off in a frenzy that dizzies him.

He breathes deeply, each intake a knife in his lungs, needle cold. There is not enough air here, at the top of this tower, this precipice of despair.

"N," he yells, the howl of wind turning it into a shriek, a wail, a moan. "N…N…!"

The other turns and smiles, sharp like a dagger; he basks in the glory of Reshiram revived.

Touya screams, his words trying to pierce through an impenetrable wall.

.

.

.

_Okay guys. I'm sorry to break my perfect hundred word trend, but I just want to thank all the readers and let people know that I do take requests. If you'd like to see me do a prompt in a 100-word drabble or a 500-word vignette, then please feel free to ask! Game novelization is being worked on as we speak, too._

_I really didn't want to break my perfect word count. I'm going to keep talking. Sorry. But you guys love me, right? It's just a minor bout of OCD. Almost there. A little more. PERFECT!_


	5. Out of the Mud

"_And you and I will be friends!"_

You frown at the thought; who is this stranger? But you are a stranger in a strange land, so you can't say much, ask much.

But you smile, like all people do when they're confused. It's easier to smile, it throws them off. You're all about the pleasing and the loving and the surface-thin calls of "See-you-soon, I'll-remember-you!"

Following the path of least resistance is your lot in life, and how easily you fall in line behind your sister hides the way your head turns to the sun, ever looking for a way up from the pit. It is sinking into a mud hole, the slime falling into your shoes and you falling into the world in the slow death of every worm that came before you.

There's grit in your teeth from the battle before, when the wind and the force sent the earth spinning into your screaming mouth (always pleading _move_); you lick your lips and feel it in the way they burn, how the battle has seared itself to you, the journey and the life of a boy lost to adventure.

N's wake is an empty void, filled in by the faint noise of guitars with a plucky tune. You swallow, inhale. The air shifts into something bearable again and your hackles lower. N is gone, off again to a place you don't know, but are undoubtedly sure to meet him at once more.

He is a curious creature, gangly and preachy.

You're not sure if you like him or not, and the shiver that tingles up your spine lights your mind in spindly little warnings.

You adjust your hat and check the time, then trudge on once more, pulling your feet up slowly and surely out of the mud.


	6. The Measure of a Man

Sometimes Touya will stare at the people passing by, laughing and carefree with faces creased in their everyday lives. He wonders what they think about, what makes them tick; they don't deliberate the best strategies against gym leaders, or worry their lips at the thought of being jumped by the local wildlife. They don't memorize the location of every pokemon center in Unova, nor do they carry dozens of bottles of full restores or revives.

They don't depend on the strength of their pokemon to ensure their victories and secure rations for the coming weeks, nor do they huddle close to their fire-types in the dead of night to ward off the ceaseless chill under thousands of glittering stars.

They don't wake up with the dew on their eyelashes and the steady wing beat of flyers. They don't watch the flowers bloom on the sides of the worn forest paths in spring, and can't imagine the ghostly sight of jellicents floating beneath the frozen surfaces of lakes in the evening.

"Do you think we're normal?" he asks N one Tuesday afternoon, licking his cone in the melting heat of summer.

"Not at all," he smiles. "But it's how we like it."

But Touya isn't sure. He bites his lip and nods, but the thought nags at him.

"We're a different kind of human, aren't we?"

N pauses, face slack. This is how N thinks, Touya knows. He vacates his body and wholly inhabits his mind. He wonders what goes on in that brilliant head. There must be worlds in there; strings of theory and formulas that build grass and trees and blue skies.

His heart aches; what must it be like to know worlds beyond where they sit? Touya can only think of pokemon and the roads he's traveled, and the words his father told him about the stars and hearts and the lights that go on and off in everyone's eyes.

He feels so small sitting next to N.

N blows out a sigh. "Perhaps. No, not perhaps. Yes. Yes, Touya, we are a different kind of human. Anyone like us can understand what we know."

Touya smiles, so that N knows he likes his answer. Before, when he would hear but not respond, N would become agitated and edgy. But he knows better now, so he shows his acceptance.

"That makes it sound…very lonely, though. We must seem odd to these people around us. Can you imagine not knowing what the sunset on a mountain must be like? Or to hear the call of the swanna when they do their mating dance?"

The other smiles evenly, and calmly flicks Touya's sweat-curled fringe. "I doubt they even think about such things. We may live on the same earth, but our planes of existence don't match. Their window into our world does not let them know these wonders."

"I see."

Touya leans back; he feels the heat of the sun, open sky, and the weight of knowing things beyond understanding.


	7. Learning to be Happy Again

"I'm happy," he whispers. "I don't think the hurt will ever go away, but I'm happy now."

Because it's scars on his knuckles, and bruises on your wrists.

Because it's late nights spent looking at stars, and not regretting the decisions that were made.

Because it's him smiling to remember, not to forget. Because it's you learning to smile again.

Because it's holding hands when feeling lonely, and holding bodies when you both can no longer walk.

Because it's changing, and yet remaining the same.

There are reasons for happiness.

Because it's knowing you've survived, and won in the end.


	8. Little Things

The little things kill him, like cutting out coupons or nicking loose threads on jacket sleeves. They are trivial, like answering the phone in the morning or pulling on socks.

It.

Just.

Bothers.

Him.

Perhaps he's a little too impatient, tapping his foot as Touya takes his sweet time at the vidphone in those dreadful Pokemon centers. Talking away with others when they could be moving ahead is wasteful and useless.

After all, they had their whole childhood to be together. It's N's turn, and maybe he doesn't like it when Cheren takes a little too long to hang up.


End file.
